Municipal Training in 2012: Something for Everyone

The annual Municipal Technology Conference serves to underscore the importance of technology in the workplace. We use computers to meet payroll, monitor bank accounts, set employee time schedules and map flood plains. We use them to take minutes at public meetings, keep abreast of municipal news and inform citizens about what our towns and cities are doing. In short, technology in the municipal workplace is indispensable.

We hope the 2012 Municipal Technology Conference proves to be indispensable as well.

This year’s Technology Conference will be held at Portland’s Holiday Inn by the Bay on Thursday, March 1. After years of staging the event at the Augusta Civic Center, Maine Municipal Association and its event co-sponsor, the Maine GIS User Group, moved it to the Bangor Civic Center in 2011 – and attendance surged. We now plan to rotate the event annually in southern Maine, Augusta and the Greater Bangor area.

Greg McNeal, Chief Technology Officer for the State of Maine, will keynote this year’s conference. He will speak on “Technology in Government,” including how broadband Internet access is influencing government at the local, state and federal levels.

The Technology Conference is a unique event in that it caters to sophisticated users – namely, the members of the Maine GIS User Group and municipal technology officers – and to office workers in small municipalities, where basic Microsoft Excel and Word software both remain quite in vogue.

This year’s conference offers many diverse workshops. The GIS User Group will host sessions on flood plain mapping, land-use suitability and the future of the 911 system, among other topics. The ConnectME Authority has worked closely with Maine Municipal Association this year and it plans to host workshops on the broadband “revolution,” broadband infrastructure and strategies for expansion.

MMA has organized workshops on how emails and other forms of communication are subject to the state’s Freedom of Access law, liability issues surrounding technology, transparency in local government and how state and municipal librarians are embracing technology to the benefit of citizens. We feel there’s something for everyone at this year’s Technology Conference. We’d love to see you in Portland on March 1. (Please see Page 30 of this month’s Townsman for the draft program.) Registration and the latest program information are available online by clicking on the conference logo at the MMA home page (www.memun.org).

MMA TRAINING IN 2012

In addition to maintaining our time-honored programs, such as our Elected Officials Workshop and Basic Municipal Budgeting, we will expand on our 2011 decision to offer training programs that address current events and trends in municipal government. Attendance at several of our programs last year – such as trends in wind power and customer service during challenging times – reached capacity, so we knew the idea was being well received.

On Dec. 14, MMA held an Elected Officials II pilot workshop in Bangor that was designed primarily for elected officials in larger municipalities with city or town managers. The event was well attended by officials and managers from Bangor, Brewer, Hampden, Old Town and Orono.

The workshop covered a lot of ground. It dealt with: Maine’s Freedom of Access Act; legislative issues and updates; news reporters and direct communication to citizens; potential conflicts of interest; and, manager-council relations. The feedback was positive and we will offer the session twice more in 2012, tentatively in Scarborough and Augusta.

We’re developing a new Freedom of Access workshop to address the recent trend in which municipalities have been challenged by dozens of document or email requests from a single person or small group of citizens. We plan to offer this workshop in Aroostook County this spring and in Brunswick in August.

Wind power remains a hot topic in many areas of the state. Attorney Jim Katsiaficas and industry expert Brooke Barnes will present a workshop in Farmington on wind power on March 21. They are careful not to be pro or anti wind power. They present information on the scope of wind power proposals, what issues confront municipalities when projects come along and what legal authority municipal officers have in regulating them.

Two other workshops that debuted last year – Customer Service Excellence and Roles of Councilors, Selectmen and Managers – will return in 2012. Margaret Noel, MMA’s Manager of Educational Services and Andrew Gilmore, town manager in Sabattus, present the customer service workshop. The workshop addressing municipal roles is presented by: Pam Plumb, a former city councilor and mayor in Portland; Don Gerrish, former manager in Brunswick and Gorham who works with Eaton Peabody Consultants; and, David Barrett, director of Personnel Services & Labor Relations at MMA.

MMA and our municipal Affiliate Groups are scheduled to host 64 workshops and conferences throughout 2012, from St. Agatha to Old Orchard Beach and from Carrabassett Valley to Bar Harbor. To see the complete list of 2012 workshops and training offerings, please go to: http://www.memun.org/public/MMA/svc/wksp/2012.pdf. We hope you like what you see.